


In The Woods Somewhere

by questionablemotive



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Also Mileven are mentioned but since it's just a mention I'm not tagging it, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Barb's death is talked about just fyi, F/M, Introspection, It ends on a good note though, When does anything I write end on a bad note honestly, but that's okay, canon compliant through S2, some of those characters are just mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22060813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/questionablemotive/pseuds/questionablemotive
Summary: Nancy had a lot of nightmares, that was no secret. Everyone did after everything. But not everyone had the benefit of believing that they killed their best friend. Anyone would lose sleep over that.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Kudos: 15





	In The Woods Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> Woohoo, second work in this fandom!  
> Okay so this follows canon through s2. I wrote it before s3 but it takes me like 5 years to gather the courage to post things, so. Happy New Year, have some angst!  
> Hopefully it's not too angsty, and it starts out Steve/Nancy and ends up Nancy/Jonathan, like the show. Mostly an introspection into Nancy's guilt over barb. I got stuck on the line of "Like we didn't kill Barb?" during her drunken speech and decided to explore it. I also beta my own work, so feel free to alert me to any mistakes I missed.
> 
> WARNING: A character death IS discussed and there ARE spoilers for season 2 here, so proceed with caution as you see fit.

Nancy Wheeler had a lot of nightmares.

Not nearly as many as her brother, or Will, or maybe even Jonathan, but she had a lot of them, regardless. What they were varied. Sometimes she was back in that place, the Upside Down, hiding behind a tree from that… that _thing_ , that monster, trying to get to Jonathan, who was calling out to her. Other times, she watched it kill Jonathan in his living room and round on her, no Steve to save them. She had many a nightmare of Eleven’s panicked voice echoing in fright around the middle school gym _“Gone! Gone!”_

Gone. Barbara was _gone_. She’d never been alive. The night… That night, she was… While Nancy was…

And that was the worst nightmare of all- her reliving that night, over and over again. She’d hear Barbara’s screams, calling for her, begging for help. The guilt in her subconscious twisted that memory, that awful night, into something worse. Sometimes, she and Steve would be killing Barbara, her conscious mind revolted by the images her subconscious mind produced. Sometimes, it would happen exactly as it had- the party, the _fight_ , the _look_ on Barb’s face… Everything with Steve. Nancy walking home, alone, feeling like she’d been hollowed out. She got into a fight with her mom that night, too. That one she didn’t replay as much.

Days, weeks, _months_ after, Nancy could replay the scene in her head in picture perfect detail. She could recall it with such clarity. The look on Barb’s face as Nancy climbed the stairs, willingly following Steve to his room, knowing the consequences.

_“This isn’t you…”_

_“I’m fine. Just… Go ahead and go home, okay?”_

How could she have known Barb would have been out at the pool? Waiting for her horrible friend?

(Because that’s how Barb was- she wouldn’t abandon Nancy, leave her at Steve’s with no way to get home. No matter how much of a bitch Nancy was being, no matter how hurt, or upset, Barb would wait.)

In that moment, when Nancy had turned around to follow Steve up to his room, to do what she _thought_ she wanted, the truth is… Nancy didn’t care. She’d literally looked down on Barb, and told her to leave. And there was nothing Nancy could do to make it right.

~-~

When she found out Barb was dead, Nancy went numb. For a solid minute, all she could do was relive that night. All she could see was Barb’s disappointed face. _I killed her. I did this. She’s dead because of me._ Those thoughts ran in a loop through her head, as she escaped to the mural in the entrance hallway. She sat there, drowning, _drowning_ , in her guilt, her grief- and then Jonathan had been there. He sat next to her, and when she told him she wanted to kill it, he went without question.

They didn’t kill it, she found out later from Mike, but they did hurt it. Enable Eleven to kill it. It didn’t make her feel better, knowing the thing that killed Barb was dead, and couldn’t hurt anyone else. She felt… Hollow. Empty. And somehow that was worse.

~-~

The first time she woke up from a nightmare where she and Steve killed Barbara, Nancy was violently ill. Her mother found her, unable to understand what happened, merely soothing Nancy’s hair back from her face, and assuming her tears were because of the sudden vomiting. Nancy let her mother think whatever she wanted, and took the chance to stay home that day. For the first time, Nancy cried. She cried until she had no tears left to give, and was sobbing empty, hollow sobs. The depth of the pain, of the guilt, set in. _Barb is dead. She’s never coming back. And it’s all my fault._ She refused to move most of the day, wallowing in her pain.

_“This isn’t you...”_

_“I’m fine. Just… Go ahead and go home, okay?”_

God, how could Nancy have been so callous? She’d ditched her _best friend_ , for what? Some guy she thought she liked? For iffy sex and to be passed out on? The fact that she’d been doing… _that_ , while Barb was dragged to the Upside Down, while Barb was _dying_ , made her feel sick all over again. She and Steve had done this.

(It took her a while, after she and Steve got back together, to even _think_ about having sex with him again, without wanting to throw up. When she finally could, she could never fully get the thought out of her head- this is what led to Barb dying. This is what I was doing. Her guilt attached itself to Steve, on the bad days.

She drowned in it by herself, on the worst.)

~-~

Time moved forward, and Nancy tried to move with it. She went to school, dated Steve, told Steve she loved him, had dinner with Barb’s parents regularly, just trying to appease her guilt, and acted as _normal_ as she could manage. Sometimes, the her she could feel herself becoming slipped through- replacing Jonathan’s camera, because it was her fault his last one got broken, ranting to Steve for all of a minute about how angry she was at that stupid lab, watching Mike vanish into himself and grow surlier and surlier, and knowing she couldn’t stop it.

(After, when she was _whole_ again and so was he, she’d apologize to Mike for not trying harder to be there for him, when he was so clearly broken. Mike would tell her that he understood, after all, she’d lost someone she loved too.)

And just like that, Nancy found herself at almost a year since it all happened. Almost a year of being with Steve. Almost a year of lying and repression, and it was getting harder and harder to maintain the facade. She wanted so badly to, to just be… _normal_ , but she _couldn’t_. And the harder she tried, the more she seemed to break. Steve begged for a normal night, and she gave it to him. He probably wished, later, that he’d never asked.

~-~

Nancy knew she was drunk. Whether she admitted it or not, she was _definitely_ not fine. She knew she would end up drunk when she started downing the mystery punch, inhaling it like water rather than alcohol. But she couldn’t _deal_ anymore. With Steve, with her peers, with all of it. It was all just… _bullshit._

_She_ was bullshit.

Later, sober, she recalled arguing with Steve, him trying to (rightly) pull the cup out of her hand, her top getting drenched with punch. Red. Even in her drunk state, she thought that it was fitting for a moment. _Now you look the part, Nancy Wheeler. You look like the murderer you are._

Steve found her in the bathroom, giving a half-assed effort, even drunk, to get the punch out of her sweater. He tried to talk to her, and she exploded.

“You wanted this!” She slurred at him, the alcohol making her anger and pain a little fuzzy.

“No, I told you to stop drinking,” Steve replied, patient, a little annoyed, maybe a little amused. But not patient like Jonathan was. Steve didn’t _get_ it. He _couldn’t_ get it. She _wanted_ him to get it.

“Bullshit!” She snapped at him, slurred, whatever. He kept refuting that it wasn’t. He still didn’t _get it_ . How could he not understand?! “No, you.” She said, and his mouth finally stopped moving. “You’re bullshit.” A tiny part of her that was fighting to remain rational, struggling to work past the alcohol in her system, saw the way his face changed when she threw that at him. Knew she was hurting him. She didn’t care. Maybe then he’d _get it_. Maybe he’d shut up and stop trying to stop her.

“W...What…?” His voice was confused, and quiet. He looked, for all the world, like a kicked puppy. Now that she’d started, she couldn’t seem to stop the words from spilling out.

“You… You’re pretending like everything’s okay, like… like… Like we didn’t kill Barb. Like, like it’s great. We’re in love and we’re partying. Yeah, let’s party, huh. We’re partying… It’s… It’s bullshit.”

When she finally remembered that fight, what she’d said, she could understand that he got stuck on her love for him being bullshit. That he was right, and she hated that she hurt him. That she dragged him into the _mess_ that she’d become, and damaged him in the process. But the part that stuck to her, the part Steve ignored, was her saying they killed Barb. Once it was out there, she couldn’t take it back. She couldn’t even stop thinking about it, that night.

Jonathan found her in the bathroom, after Steve took off. Unlike with Steve, where she’d been all anger, when she saw Jonathan, all she felt was pain. She’d started blubbering almost instantly, incoherently babbling about Steve, and what a _mistake_ that had been, and how she missed Jonathan and why didn’t he ever _call_? Most of it was incomprehensible, but one part, when he finally started to calm her down, was so clear, there was no way he didn’t hear her.

“I killed her, Jonathan,” She slurred into his shoulder as he held her, “I killed Barb.”

~-~

She remembered, somewhere between making a plan with him, and driving to Murray’s, that Jonathan had been the one to take her home. What she’d said to him. That his response to her confession was simple, sweet.

_“I’m sorry, Nancy… I’m so sorry,”_

And then he’d helped her to his car, helped her into her house, took her _shoes_ off for her, and tucked her into bed before quietly getting his brother, and leaving. She didn’t deserve him, but for the first time in almost a year she felt lighter. Better. Like maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t a horrible person. Maybe she wasn’t the bitch who killed her best friend. Maybe she could be better. She could be the Nancy who didn’t hesitate, the one who could shoot a gun with ease, and planned monster hunts, and had a long, thin scar on her left hand that matched his perfectly.

Maybe she could be someone she liked, for once. Someone Barb would be proud of. They just had to get the truth out there, first.

~-~

And then… It was over. Will wasn’t possessed anymore, the gate was closed, Eleven was back and Mike was already so much better. And somehow, she hadn’t lost Jonathan yet. He stayed with her, watching the papers for the slightest sign. And when the news broke, Jonathan was the first one to hold her as she finally, _finally_ , let her guilt go and let herself grieve her best friend.

He stood by her side at Barbara’s funeral, quiet and respectful. His hand never left hers, the whole time, and she took strength from it. And when it was all over, when Barb was buried and Nancy could breathe for the first time in a _year_ , Jonathan was there to see her smile.

~-~

Sometime after the Snowball, a lazy Saturday afternoon, that found the two of them curled up in his bed, relaxed and dozing, she finally asked about it.

“Hey, Jonathan?” She asked, earning a soft hum in reply. “On… Halloween, when you took me home, do… Do you remember what I said to you? In the bathroom?”

Jonathan shifted slightly adjusting so he could look her in the eye, “The part where you were sobbing incoherently, and talking a mile a minute, or the part where you told me that you could walk out by yourself?” He had that gleam in his eye, the one he had when he was teasing her. “Which, by the way, you could not.” She gave a little snort and lightly smacked him on the chest in reprimand, which only earned her a genuine smile. Maybe rolling her eyes was unnecessary, but he chuckled, and that sent tingles through her. “Or… The part where you told me you killed your best friend?”

Her breath caught, and her eyes found his again. He _did_ remember. “Yeah… That part,” She murmured, holding his gaze. By now, Jonathan knew about her nightmares. He had them too. They spent most nights together now, only partially for… _those_ reasons. They both slept better together, something about the other’s presence keeping the nightmares at bay, for the most part. And on those nights when the nightmares came anyway, they had someone there to reassure them when they woke.

“I remember,” He murmured, reaching up to brush a dark curl behind her ear. “Why?” he asked.

“You… You apologized, when I said that, and then… You looked at me like I meant…. Like…” She struggled with words for a moment, only to find him giving her the same look. “Like that,” She murmured, reaching up to cradle his face in her hand. “Like you love me,” She whispered, knowing he did, having echoed it back herself because she _did_ feel it.

“That’s because I do love you,” He murmured, leaning in to press a gentle, comforting kiss to her lips.

“I know, and I love you too,” She replied, as soon as they parted, “But…”

“But nothing, Nancy. If you’re wondering why I said what I did, it’s because you were hurting. My mom blamed herself for Will, I blamed myself for Will… I still…” He let out a sigh when her eyes flicked up to meet his, “I know, I know. It’s not my fault. But it’s not your fault either, Nancy. You didn’t kill Barbara. Barb… _died_ , and you couldn’t have possibly known… None of us knew that thing was out there, I didn’t even know it had taken her and I was standing _right there_ , Nance,” He reassured, his hand rubbing up and down her back in a calming motion now, giving her a pointed look when she went to speak again, “You didn’t kill Barb, no matter _what_ you were doing, or _what_ you think. And I’ll keep reminding you of that, any time you doubt it.” He promised, easily.

Nancy lay there for a long moment, tears burning at her eyes as she let his words wash over her. _It’s not your fault._ She didn’t kill Barb. A part of her, a dark, twisted part rebelled at the idea, but for the first time… She wanted to believe it. She buried her face in his chest, feeling a few tears slip free while he murmured comfort in her ear and held her. _I didn’t kill her._

“Jonathan?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
